Fighting Parkinson’s Disease with Climbing

We were amazed at what we saw on a sweltering summer day when a group of people with Parkinson’s began rock climbing on the cliffs of Carderock, Maryland . Yes, climbing!

It’s all part of their therapy, says Molly Cupka, a no-nonsense instructor and cheerleader for this community of courageous climbers.

She started this program, called UpENDing Parkinsons, as a nonprofit organization twelve years ago.

“There’s a lot of balance, mobility, strength, cardio, and then there’s the cognitive part, where you have to look at the hold and figure out how to move your body to achieve it,” she said. declared. .

How often do they fall? “Falling is definitely part of climbing,” Cupka said. But they never really autumnbecause they wear a harness which provides a layer of security. “You’re always on the rope. You’re falling, but you’re not falling far. They always say that if you’re not falling, you’re not trying hard enough!”

There is no cure for Parkinson’s disease, which typically affects mobility, coordination, balance and even speech. Jon Lessin was diagnosed in 2003. He was once an all-around athlete. About 12 years ago, he retired as a cardiac anesthesiologist due to Parkinson’s disease. His daughter, Brittany, watched his steady decline, until he discovered climbing walls up to 60 feet!

“My dad has trouble getting across the room, but he can get to the top of this giant wall,” Brittany said. “He had to give up a lot of things because of his illness. But this is something he discovered through her, which is really cool.”

Jon said, “I get to the top and I feel like I’ve conquered something. And I feel like the wall can’t beat me. I can beat the wall.”

Full disclosure: this story is very personal to me. My late husband, Aaron Latham, suffered from Parkinson’s disease and did boxing to combat the symptoms. as he explained on “Sunday Morning” in 2015. “Boxing is the complete opposite of Parkinson’s,” Latham said. “Everything is designed, instead of shrinking you, everything is designed to inflate you.”

Jon Lessin said that Parkinson’s disease “makes you feel very small. You make small movements, you are bent over. And [rock climbing] makes you feel like you can accomplish the world. »

It was Lessin who first had the big idea of ​​using rock climbing as a therapy for Parkinson’s disease. “I wanted to do exercises with big movements,” he said. “And I found Molly in this gym.”

Lessin proposed the idea to Molly Cupka, who runs Sportrock Climbing Center in Alexandria, Virginia. She thought it was worth a try, given that the sport requires participants to plan ahead and know where to place their hands and feet. “I would love to be able to get inside the brain and see what’s happening while people are climbing,” Cupka said.

Some people with Parkinson’s disease, like Vivek Puri, experience dyskinesia (involuntary jerky movements). Puri said he was generally unaware of it. He runs a home construction company in the Washington DC area and was just 38 years old when he discovered he had Parkinson’s disease. “Fine motor skills really suffered dramatically,” he said. “When I don’t climb for a while, I get worse.”

But once hung on the wall, he calls himself Spider-Man.

“Honestly, I climb like a monkey,” he said. “I’m moving my finger strength, which gets my fine motor skills back – maybe not backwards, but kind of keeps it moving.”

There is no evidence that climbing slows the progression of Parkinson’s disease, but Cupka teamed up with Marymount University last year to study patients who climb for the first time. “We have people literally walking and carrying weights, you know, walking and watching, multitasking,” she said.

The study found that, in other words, if you climb, you might walk better.

Mark de Mulder, musician and former director of the National Geospatial Program, doesn’t need a study to prove what climbing does for him. “It allows me to say, ‘All right, take that, Parkinson! I’m doing this!’ It just makes me feel stronger and I fight against it.”

Many climbers have become friends and climb together several times a week; and they became a support group, Parkinson’s Pals, who encourage each other.

“When I reach the top, I can turn around, look, wave, see my wife and my friends, and that’s the reward,” de Mulder said. “It’s really wonderful.”

We don’t really understand how these people can do this, but you can certainly understand Why. An emotional Vivek Puri said, “It’s good to be good at something.”

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Story produced by Richard Buddenhagen and Kay Lim. Publisher: Georges Pozderec.

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